Friendship : Past, Present and Future

31st July 2010 one of the usual day in life. As one of the week end day this day went so fast that I could not even imagine the difference between 12 pm and 12 am. I was busy with my usual routine which I tend to follow on each weekend. But with this usual routine, I forgot that this is one of the special day as it fell one day before the first Sunday of August. In the year 1935, the United States Congress proclaimed first Sunday of August as the National Friendship Day to honour friends. Since then Friendship Day has been celebrated not only in the United Sates but around the world.

This is a day to make new friends, honour old friends, get together and celebrate. Friends usually greet each other by exchanging flowers, greeting cards and putting the knots of friendship belts.Friendship day is more popular amongst youngsters especially in school and colleges. Wow! I still remember one of my college day when, along with my friends, I was waiting for the clock hands to cross 12 in mid night at one of our favourite restaurant. Yes! It was a friendship day. We had blast that night, cutting a cake, painting each other's faces with cake, sharing it and eating with lots of smiles. Each moment is still fresh in memory.

In the famous Hindu epic ‘Mahabharata’, Lord Krishna demonstrates the many colors of friendship - affection, romance, brotherhood, protection, guidance, intimacy and even teasing. Friendship is all about these and much more, yes it is. Friends are good wishers, friends are contributors, friends are helping hands, friends are cares, friends are tears, friends are everything. There are different versions of expressing friendship. Friends staying at miles feels like staying at few meters from each other.

But, standing away from the college days, with new technology the communication has become faster and with social networking people are in touch with their friends, on the move. However the older methods such as greeting cards and friendship wrist bands are disappearing slowly. Old fashion of greeting each other by exchanging flowers and cards is rapidly being replaced with sending SMS or emails, chatting on messengers and if time permits speaking on phone. Good wishers become competitors, contributors become expensive, helping hands moving away, tears become fears and everything moving towards something. Friends staying at few meters feels like staying at miles away from each other. Everyone is falling short with time, lifestyle has changed, priorities have changed,feelings have changed :( I am not blaming any of my friends, I am blaming the present.

Leaving all these thoughts behind, lets revise the thoughts together that my friends are my estate. Lets make future as friendly as past. Lets be like a violin where the music may stop now and then, but the strings will last forever. Let not forget that each friend represents a world in us. Let not forget the most important ingredient in the recipe of life. You have a hand, and a friend have another; put them together and let both have each other. Lets understand together a friendship as a past, present and future.

A very happy friendship day...!!!

Two deadly seconds..!!

Local(train) is a commonly used mode of transportation in India. It has become a part of life, especially for the people living in metro cities. Still I have seen many people having scared with the rail journey. I would say it is only you who makes it scary. I don’t know why people avoid following the railway rules. As a primary expectation, can’t we follow the basic rules or the rules which makes sense to follow it? I had witnessed the incident when everybody was thinking about those 2 seconds.

One of my friends had to leave for Mumbai as his mother was alone at home. I went to railway station to drop him. We were waiting for the 7.30pm lonavala local on the platform. We saw one middle age couple, moving towards the platform where we were waiting for the train. Instead of having a long path going over the bridge, they decided to go with the shortest path by crossing the railway line. We guessed that they want to catch the local too.

After looking at them, we (my friend and I) saw towards the rail signals as it was a time for the local to arrive at Akurdi station. Surprised! Signals were green and still that couple had courage to cross the railway line. People started shouting at that couple and asking them not to cross the same. But they did not respond a single word and continued their journey towards hell. Ohhh God! Suddenly we saw the local coming towards the station. Unknowingly we started shouting too. The man had caught the platform and the woman was still struggling with the heavy feet. It was a very horrible moment when the man was trying his best to get her on to the platform knowing that the train is hardly few meters away from her. We couldn’t stop our self and ran to pull her with the heavy thoughts in mind and with lord Ganesh’s blessings we managed to get her on to the platform successfully just two seconds before local crossed her. Thanks a ton to the train driver who slowed down the train after knowing about the incident.

The death had just passed for the woman and she was on the platform with the heart running with larger beats. Suddenly there was a pin drop silence on the platform and everybody took the deep breath. But life doesn’t stops for anyone. The entire passengers who were waiting for the train got into the train, but my friend was still steering at that couple, especially a man with the angry eyes. He shouted at the man and warned him not to repeat the mistake again if his life is not cheap. The local was about to depart from station and I asked him to get in. The train left with the passengers towards lonavala and the couple was still there on platform. Interesting, they were not doing all that drama to catch the train, in fact later I came to know that they are local resident of Akurdi and they were moving to their home after the daily work. That was even embarrassing when the couple had a chicky smile on their face and left from there!

A lovely night with a lovely gift

It was a Thursday afternoon. Clock's bigger hand was in between 2 & 3 and smaller hand had already crossed 6. Normally I used to wait this time when any day-night cricket game is on its way. Yes! It was the 4th ODI between India and Srilanka of the last ODI series of 2009. Strange! The game had already started and I had forgotten it. Somebody in office shouted that Dilshan got out then I woke up and realized that its cricket match going on. There onwards I started looking into the match and my finger was frequently moving to F5 to refresh the score.

But, it was disappointing. In spite of loosing Dilshan early, with the explosive batting of Tharanga and skipper Sangakara, Srilankans were brilliantly keeping the score board running up at almost 6 runs a over. One thought came to my mind that it’s someone else's day today. Ohh! Happened the same and Tharanga scored his 7th ODI century. At the end, with Parera's brilliant 30 off 12 Srilanka managed to cross 300 and scored 315 in limited 50 overs.

In between while moving towards home from office, I met my friend Tejas in/arround Infosys campus. Tejas is a good fan of cricket. While having some dabeli n all we were discussing about the same match which was being played at Eden garden, Calcatta. Finally the discussion came to a conclusion that in the absence of Dhoni and Yuvi, if we lose both Sachin and Sehwag early, it will be a winning game for Srilanka to level the series by 2-2.

Having the similar thoughts in mind, I came to home and started watching the match with negative mind. Though I was fully supporting India, after losing Sachin & Sehwag early in first 6 overs and with the score of 22 on board, I was ready to wrap it all together. Having the crossed fingers and scolding the on crease batsmen Virat Kohali and Gautam Gambhir I was watching the match. My wife observed my temper and laughed at me. Later, she added that one of her colleagues is looking for Srilanka's victory so as to make the last and final game more interesting. My eyes became red with anger, but I kept quite with the saying of "Truth is a truth".

After losing world class top two batsmen, with the score of 22/2 it was not at all looking good and I switched myself to surf an internet to make me happy. I was trying to keep whole of my concentration on Facebook playing FarmVille, at least it was going well for me :o). But still, out of curacity TV channels were switching between Neo Sports and Zee Marathi. Now it was the time for dinner and I had to move away from facebook too. So after completing all the daily serials n all, slowly and obviously I moved to Neo Sports. It was looking like both Virat and Gauti were playing good. But target was too far, so confidence stroke on each new delivery was important which was very difficult under pressure knowing that there are hardly few good batsmen coming in middle order ahead. Hence after dinner I found another way to pass the time and started playing Carrom with my wife. After all, I had to watch the match till the end irrespective of its result.

As usual, I sat facing towards TV and started playing Carrom. Usually, I used to play better than my wife and used to beat her. But this time the scene was different and she was playing better than me. I kept wondering to myself how come this is happening. Looking towards my burdened head my wife confirmed that this is all because of the Cricket match. According to her, though I was on Carrom board, all my senses were concentrating towards TV. I laughed to myself with this explanation and promised her a party on India's victory. She reminded me that I already have a pending party for the 1st historical victory (the one in which India won by just 3 runs even after scoring 414 runs). I smiled at her and shook my head.

It turned to a lovely evening for Virat and Gautam, both of them were playing the game of their life. Virat completed his brilliant maiden century under huge pressure and soon after Gautam raised the hopes with his 7th ODI century for India. They were playing like a champ. Now all was going smooth and the game was in India's court. Suddenly Virat failed down to convert his shot to a big sixer and got out. But it was not the time to worry. Yes! Before his dismissal on 107, Virat had already added 224 runs with Gautam Gambhir to put India from 22/2 to 246/3. Though 69 were needed from almost 65, with the way Gautam was playing nothing was too far.

Dinesh Karthick joined Gautam to drive India towards the victory with one of the greatest chase. At the end it was even going too smooth and anybody could have noticed the frustration on Srilankans. Keeping more than a over to spare India took the match away from Srilankan with the winning lead of 3-1 in the series. Really, In the absence of Dhoni & Yuvi and after a super flop show by Sachin & Sehwag, chasing the highest total on India's one of the biggest ground Eden garden, what do you expect more than this from rest of the team? Gautam smashed unbeaten 150, the highest individual score on this ground to contribute biggest share in India's Victory.

It was a lovely night with a lovely gift by Virat and Gautam on the eve of Christmas.

स्वप्नातल स्वप्न

एक नविन चित्रपट.....
चित्रपटाचे नाव - स्वप्नातल स्वप्न.
कलाकार - मोतिराम पाटील , तेजस्विनी पाटील , अनंत सोनार , रुजुता सोनार, विनायक चौधरी.
दिग्दर्शक - मोतीराम पाटील.
निर्माता - मोतीराम पाटील.

द्र्ष १ -
अनंत आणि रुजुता यांचे नुकतेच लग्न झालेल! त्या निमीत्ताने एका मंदिरात एक पुजा आयोजीत केलेलि आहे. पुजे दरम्यान देवाच्या भक्ती मधे गुंग झालेली रुजुता न्रुत्य करत आहे. अनंत आणि नातेवाईक मंदिरात देवाच्या भक्ती मधे गुंग झालेली आहेत. हे सगळ सुरु आहे ते पाचोरा या गावाला हं!

द्र्ष २ -
मंदिराच्या अगदी समोरच विनायक चौधरी यांचे निवास स्थान आहे. विनायक चौधरी घराच्या गॅलरी मधुन देवाच्या भक्ती मधे गुंग झालेले आहेत.

द्र्ष ३ -
या सगळ्या कार्यक्रमासाठी बोलावलेले पाहुणे आहेत मोतीराम पाटील! हे पाहुणे अचानक कार्यक्रमा स्थळी येऊन पोचतात! पण सगळे जण देवाच्या भक्ती मधे इतके गुंग झालेले की यांच्याकडे कुणाचेच लक्ष नाही. पाहुणे आपले इकडे तिकडे बघुन आपल्याकडे कुणाचे तरी लक्ष जाईल याच अपेक्षेत उभे!

द्र्ष ४ -
मग थोड्या वेळानंतर रुजुताचेच लक्ष पाहुण्यांकडे जाते. मग होते संवादाला सुरुवात.
रुजुता - अरे एम् पी तु केव्हा आलास!
पाहुणे - हे काय चालतोच आहे.
रुजुता - बरं बरं, काय घेणार, चहा, काफी, सरबत?
पाहुणे - आता लगेच काही नको, लागेल तेव्हा मागुन घेईल मी. अन्या कुठे आहे?
रुजुता - तो काय समोरच आहे ना!

द्र्ष ५ -
मग पाहुणे अनंत जवळ जाऊन बसतात!
अनंत - अरे ये ये, कसा झाला प्रवास?
पाहुणे - विचारुच नको खुप हाल झालेत यार! ते सोड, अजुन किती वेळ आहे ही पुजा?
अनंत - माहीत नाहि यार, मी पण वाट पहातोय कधी संपेन ही पुजा त्याचि.
पाहुणे - बरं बरं, अजुन काय विशेष?
हे सगळे बोलणे चालु असताना, लांबुनच देव दर्शन घेत असतलेल्या विनायक चौधरींच्या लक्षात येते कि मोती आलेला आहे. ते बघुन विनायक उडी मारुन मंदीरात हजर होतो.
द्र्ष ६ -
मंदीरात येऊन अन मग देवाला नमस्कार करुन विनायक ची संवादाला सुरुवात होते.
विनायक - अरे मोती तु कधी आलास?
अनंत - अबे बराच वेळ झाला त्याला येऊन! तु गॅलरी मधे काय झोपा काढत होता काय?
विनायक - ये तु गप रे!
पाहुणे - अरे अरे भांडु नका रे. अरे विन्या मला येऊन १०-१५ मिनीटे झालीत. अजुन सांग तु लग्न कधि करतोय?
विनायक - करेल रे बाबा! तु आधी घरी चल!

द्र्ष ७ -
मग दोधे जण विनायक च्या घरी जातात आणी मग गप्पा सुरुच.
विनायक - ये आज तु इथेच मुक्काम करणार आहेस हा बाकी मला काही माहीत नाही.

द्र्ष ८ -
अचानक काहीतरी आवाज होतो आणि पाहुण्यांना जाग येते. मग मला कळते कि मी तर स्वप्नात होतो. बाजुला वळुन बघतो तर माझी सौ. तेजस्विनी शांत झोपलेली. मग मी छान स्मितपणे हसतो आणि पुन्हा झोपी जातो.

आता थोडे अस्तित्वात -
मग मोबईल मधला अलार्म वाजतो आणि मला खरोखर जाग येते. आणि मग कळते कि ते सगळे माझे स्वप्नातले स्वप्न होते.